Billboards
Listen.
Somewhere you’ll hear it. You’ll see it too.
It seems animosity fuses up through the pavement outside,
Seeps through every crevice and crack in the sidewalk,
Crawling (curling) like moss around the toes of its inhabitants.
You can see if you look hard;
The faint mark of judgment’s slime on the soles of your feet.
It’s there.
It burns if it touches your skin, that hatred.
It does.
And I tried to scrape the acrimony from the zipper of my boots;
But it clings with parasitic vigor to mobile tangibility.
And it stains, then, the fingers that fumbled with the zip,
And it coats, then, the eyes that are rubbed by that hand,
And it spreads, then, by the tainted perception of judgment
That did not exist ten minutes before.
It burns.
Look, then, and see
The judgment discoloring the walls behind our portraits,
And the tablecloths under our coffee mugs,
And the hollowness of our bottom lips as we argue.
Its funny, but I wish I could raise my blemished hands,
And stow away on the 12 o’clock bus to the city,
And paint over every billboard with the colors
Flowing idly behind my skin.
I’d strike and strew, for what it’s worth,
And break the streak of widespread epidemic with colors
As diverse as the size of our shoes,
Or the shape of our eyes,
Or the depth of our bras,
Or the reasoning behind our actions.
Because, those are what we are, aren’t they?
Colors, under it all.
Claw through the thickened animosity of public perception,
Words exchanged that never leave,
Labels: self acclaimed and misinterpreted,
And you’ll find colors.
Look.